Elli Wohlgelernter

JERUSALEM — The scene at Shikma Prison in Ashkelon on April 21 is sure to be a major media event, with fans, foes and reporters from the world over waiting outside when convicted nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu walks free for the first time since 1986. But what happens the day after is the issue now confronting the Israeli government, which

JERUSALEM –- After 21 suicide bus bombings in the last 41 months that killed 164 people and wounded 777, the Israeli government has acknowledged that it has failed to provide security and is now embarking on a new venture to ensure the safety of all passengers.Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi unveiled the new plan this month, which calls

JERUSALEM — Lubavitch leaders are crying foul after one of their own was passed up for the newly created post of chief rabbi of Lithuania.Rabbi Sholom Krinsky, the Chabad emissary who has served in Vilnius for a decade, said he was being ignored by the Association of Jewish Religious Communities of Lithuania because it now wants to be the heir

JERUSALEM — Actor Jason Alexander will tell anyone who asks that he’s nothing at all like George Costanza, the pompous, petty, egocentric character he played on “Seinfeld.” Somehow, though, he can’t help sounding just a bit like his alter ego. Even when he’s flying halfway around the world as an ambassador of peace, he can’t help

JERUSALEM — Amid growing indications that anarchy and lawlessness are reaching a critical stage within the Palestinian territories, observers now are wondering aloud if the financially broke and politically splintered Palestinian Authority is on the verge of collapse.The mayor of the West Bank city of Nablus, Ghassan Shakah, resigned last week

JERUSALEM — The head of Lithuania’s Jewish community has sent a blistering letter to Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yonah Metzger, telling him to butt out of local Jewish communal affairs in Lithuania, the Forward has learned.Metzger sent a letter last month to the president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas, praising the Lubavitch rabbi in

JERUSALEM — Malcolm Hoenlein is accustomed to being updated by Israeli officials about “the situation,” but he has never been as close to it as he was this week.Hoenlein, head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, personally witnessed his first suicide bombing up close, and was visibly shaken describing it

JERUSALEM — Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, told the Forward that he opposes any change to the Conservative movement’s prohibition against ordaining gay rabbis or sanctioning same-sex commitment ceremonies.Schorsch outlined his position this week while attending the annual convention of the Conservative

JERUSALEM — This Sunday, large numbers of Israelis will be watching the Super Bowl, cheering on the New England Patriots and their philanthropic-minded owner, Robert Kraft. A few weeks later, they’ll be cheering on a very different football team backed by Kraft — a team of young women, many of them Orthodox Jews.Kraft does business

JERUSALEM — A political consultant to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is weighing an offer to work for a right-wing Romanian presidential candidate with a history of antisemitic statements, despite the objections of Israeli Foreign Ministry officials and Jewish communal officials in America.Eyal Arad, an Israeli public-relations consultant who ran